Homosexuality in Ancient India

Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik is the author of several essays and books
on Hindu lore. His recent book 'Man who was a woman and other queer
tales from Hindu Lore' was published by Haworth Press, USA. This
essay was first published in Debonair Anniversary Issue,
2001.

Did homosexuality exist in ancient India? The answer in many
respects depends on what we mean by homosexuality. Do we limit
ourselves only to sexual acts between members of the same sex and
leave out romantic affection? Do we distinguish between those men
who occasionally have sex with other men but otherwise live
heterosexual lives, and those for whom their sexual preference forms
the core of their identity? Do we consider same-sex intercourse that
occurs in the course of a subterfuge, or as a result of frustration
or desperation? And do we include liaisons involving those who
consider themselves neither male nor female (for example, hijras)?
Definitions are important because 'homosexuality' does not connote
the same thing to all people. Besides, the meaning has changed over
time. As has the meaning of heterosexuality.

Until early 20th century, 'heterosexuality' was used to refer to
'morbid sexual practices' between men and women such as oral and
anal intercourse, as opposed to 'normal' procreative sex. The term
homosexuality - that is so casually used today and is almost an
everyday vocabulary - came into being only in the late 19th century
Europe when discussions on the varied expressions of sex and
sexuality became acceptable in academic circles. The term was used
to describe "morbid sexual passion between members of the same sex."
It was declared 'unnatural' by colonial laws, as unnatural as casual
sex between men and women that was not aimed at
conception.

The term homosexuality and the laws prohibiting 'unnatural' sex
were imposed across the world through imperial might. Though they
exerted a powerful influence on subsequent attitudes, they were
neither universal nor timeless. They were - it must be kept in mind
- products of minds that were deeply influenced by the 'sex is sin'
stance of the Christian Bible. With typical colonial condescension,
European definitions, laws, theories and attitudes totally
disregarded how similar sexual activity was perceived in other
cultures.

There never has been across geography or history a standard
expression of, or a common attitude towards sexual acts between
members of the same sex. Love of a man for a boy was
institutionalised in ancient Greece, amongst Samurais in Japan, in
certain African as well as Polynesian tribes. Amongst some Native
and South American tribes, erotic relationships between men was
acceptable so long as one of the partners was 'feminine'. For Arabs,
so medieval travellers claim, 'women were for home and hearth, while
boys were for pleasure'. These cultures offer no synonym for
same-sex intercourse. It was perhaps a practice that did not merit
definition, categorization or even condemnation. So long as it did
not threaten the dominant heterosexual social construct.

To find out if homosexuality or same-sex intercourse existed in
India, and in what form, we have to turn to three sources: images on
temple walls, sacred narratives and ancient law books.

What the walls show

Construction of Hindu temples in stone began around the sixth
century of the Common Era. Construction reached climax between the
twelfth and the fourteenth century when the grand pagodas of eastern
and southern India such as Puri and Tanjore came into being. On the
walls and gateways of these magnificent structures we find a variety
of images: gods, goddesses, demons, nymphs, sages, warriors, lovers,
priests, monsters, dragons, plants and animals. Amongst scenes from
epics and legends, one invariably finds erotic images including
those that modern law deems unnatural and society considers obscene.
Curiously enough, similar images also embellish prayer halls and
cave temples of monastic orders such as Buddhism and Jainism built
around the same time.

The range of erotic sculptures is wide: from dignified couples
exchanging romantic glances, to wild orgies involving warriors,
sages and courtesans. Occasionally one finds images depicting
bestiality coupled with friezes of animals in intercourse. All rules
are broken: elephants are shown copulating with tigers, monkeys
molest women while men mate with asses. And once in a while, hidden
in niches as in Khajuraho, one does find images of either women
erotically embracing other women or men displaying their genitals to
each other, the former being more common (suggesting a tilt in
favour of the male voyeur).

These images cannot be simply dismissed as perverted fantasies of
an artist or his patron considering the profound ritual importance
given to these shrines. There have been many explanations offered
for these images - ranging from the apologetic to the ridiculous.
Some scholars hold a rather puritanical view that devotees are being
exhorted to leave these sexual thoughts aside before entering the
sanctum sanctorum. Others believe that hidden in these images is a
sacred Tantric geometry; the aspirant can either be deluded by the
sexuality of the images or enlightened by deciphering the
geometrical patterns therein. One school of thought considers these
images to representations of either occult rites or fertility
ceremonies. Another suggests that these were products of degenerate
minds obsessed with sex in a corrupt phase of Indian history.
According to ancient treatises on architecture, a religious
structure is incomplete unless its walls depicts something erotic,
for sensual pleasures (kama) are as much an expression of life as
are righteous conduct (dharma), economic endeavours (artha) and
spiritual pursuits (moksha).

Interpretations and judgements aside, these images to tell us
that the 'idea' of same-sex and what the colonial rulers termed
'unnatural' intercourse did exist in India. One can only speculate
if the images represent the common or the exception.

What the stories suggest

In Indian epics and chronicles, there are occasional references
to same-sex intercourse. For example, in the Valmiki Ramayana,
Hanuman is said to have seen Rakshasa women kissing and embracing
those women who have been kissed and embraced by Ravana. In the
Padma Purana is the story of a king who dies before he can give his
two queens the magic potion that will make them pregnant. Desperate
to bear his child, the widows drink the potion, make love to each
other (one behaving as a man, the other as a woman) and conceive a
child. Unfortunately, as two women are involved in the rite of
conception, the child is born without bones or brain (according to
ancient belief, the mother gives the fetus flesh and blood, while
the father gives the bone and brain). In these stories, the same-sex
intercourse, born of frustration or desperation, is often a poor
substitute of heterosexual sex.

More common are stories of women turning into men and men turning
into women. In the Mahabharata, Drupada raises his daughter
Shikhandini as a man and even gets 'him' a wife. When the wife
discovers the truth on the wedding night, all hell breaks loose; her
father threatens to destroy Drupada's kingdom. The timely
intervention of Yaksha saves the day: he lets Shikhandini use his
manhood for a night and perform his husbandly duties. In the Skanda
Purana, two Brahmins desperate for money disguise themselves as a
newly married couple and try to dupe a pious queen in the hope of
securing rich gifts. But such is the queen's piety that the gods
decide to prevent her from being made a fool; they turn the Brahmin
dressed as a bride into a real woman. The two Brahmins thus end up
marrying each other and all ends well. According to a folk narrative
from Koovagam in Tamil Nadu, the Pandavas were told to sacrifice
Arjuna's son Aravan if they wished to win the war at Kurukshetra.
Aravan refused to die a virgin. As no woman was willing to marry a
man doomed to die in a day, Krishna's help was sought. Krishna
turned into a woman, married Aravan, spent a night with him and when
he was finally beheaded, mourned for him like a widow. These stories
allow women to have sex with women and men to have sex with men on
heterosexual terms. One may interpret these tales as repressed
homosexual fantasies of a culture.

Perhaps the most popular stories revolving around gender
metamorphoses are those related to Mohini, the female incarnation of
Lord Vishnu. They are found in many Puranas. Vishnu becomes a woman
to trick demons and tempt sages. When the gods and demons churn the
elixir of immortality out of the ocean of milk, Mohini distracts the
demons with her beauty and ensures that only the gods sip the divine
drink. In another story, Mohini tricks a demon with the power to
incinerate any creature by his mere touch to place his hand on his
own head. Mohini is so beautiful that when Shiva looks upon her he
sheds semen out of which are born mighty heroes such as Hanuman
(according to Shiva Purana) and Ayyappa (according to the Malayalee
folk lore). One wonders why Vishnu himself transforms into a woman
when he could have appointed a nymph or goddess to do the needful.
However, devotees brush aside even the suggestion of a homosexual
subtext; for them this sexual transformation is merely a necessary
subterfuge to ensure cosmic stability. He who is enchanted by
Mohini's form remains trapped in the material world; he who realizes
Mohini's essence (Vishnu) attains liberation.

In the Brahmavaivarta Purana, Mohini tells Brahma, "Any man who
refuses to satisfy a willing woman in her fertile period is a
eunuch." This idea is explicit in the Mahabharata when Arjuna is
deprived of his manhood after he spurns the sexual attentions of the
nymph Urvashi. Consequently, the mighty archer is forced to live as
a 'eunuch dance teacher' called Brihanalla in the court of King
Virata for a year. All this suggests that in ancient India, men who
were 'unlike men', unwilling or incapable to have intercourse with
women, were deprived of their manhood and expected to live as women
in the fringes of mainstream society. Perhaps this explains the
existence of the hijra community in India. Like Brihanalla of
Mahabharata, hijras have served in the female quarters of royal
households for centuries.

Hijras are organized communities comprises of males who express
themselves socially as women. They are a mix of transsexuals (men
who believe themselves to be women), transvestites (men who dress in
women's clothes), homosexual (men who are sexually and romantically
attracted to men), hermaphrodites (men whose genitals are poorly
defined due to genetic defect or hormonal imbalance) and eunuchs
(castrated men). In one of the many folk stories associated with
Bahucharaji (patron goddess of hijras worshipped in Gujarat), the
goddess was once a princess who castrated her husband because he
preferred going to forest and 'behaving as a woman' instead of
coming to her bridal bed. In another story, the man who attempted to
molest Bahucharaji was cursed with impotency. He was forgiven only
after he gave up his masculinity, dressed as a woman and worshipped
the goddess.

The idea of men who are not quite male or female was known in
India for a long time. Such beings were known as kliba. In the
Brahmana texts, written eight centuries before Christ we learn that
when the gods separated the three worlds, there was sorrow. The gods
cast the sorrow of the heaven into a whore (socially improper
woman), the sorrow of the nether regions into the rogue (socially
improper man) and the sorrow of earth into the kliba (biologically
imperfect human). In later Hindu texts such as Manusmriti, the kliba
was forbidden for participating in rituals; he was not allowed to
possess property. Scholars believe the kliba was an umbrella term
not unlike present-day words like namard and napunsak, which could
mean anything from sexually dysfunctional male to impotent man to
homosexual. One text describes fourteen different types of klibas,
one of whom is a man who uses his mouth as a vagina (mukhabhaga).
Hijras believe that they are neither male nor female, making them
the descendents of the ancient kliba (though there is no definite
proof in this regard). According to hijra folklore, when Rama went
to the forest in exile, he asked the men and women of Ayodhya who
had followed him to return to city. Since he said nothing to those
who were neither male nor female, these waited outside the city
until he returned. Touched by their devotion, Rama declared that the
non-man would be king in the Kali Yuga.

What the scriptures reveal

The Kali Yuga marks the final phase in the cosmic lifespan, the
era before the flood of doom. Hindu scriptures state that in this
age all forms of sexual irregularities will occur. Men will deposit
semen in apertures not meant for them (Mouth? Anus?). According to
Narada Purana: "The great sinner who discharges semen in non-vagins,
in those who are destitute of vulva, and uteruses of animals shall
fall into the hell 'reto-bhojana' (where one has to subsist on
semen). He then falls into 'vasakupa' (a deep and narrow well of
fat). There he stays for seven divine years. That man has semen for
his diet. He becomes the despicable man in the world when reborn."
Clearly an acknowledgement, but not acceptance, of homosexual
conduct.

In the Kamasutra, there is a rather disdainful reference to male
masseurs who indulge in oral sex (auparashtika). The author of this
sex manual was not a fan of homosexual activities though he did
refer to them in his book. Reference, but not approval, to
homosexual conduct does occur in many Dharmashastras. These Hindu
law books tell us what is considered by Brahmins to be acceptable
and unacceptable social conduct. Since laws are not made on
activities that don't exist, a study of these scriptures does give
an insight into behaviours in ancient India that merited a
law.

The Manusmriti scorns female homosexuals. It states, "If a girl
does it (has sex) to another girl, she should be fined two hundred
(pennies), be made to pay double (the girl's) bride-price, and
receive ten whip (lashes). But if a (mature) woman does it to a
girl, her head should be shaved immediately or two of her fingers
should be cut off, and she should be made to ride on a donkey."
There are no kind words for a male homosexual either: "Causing an
injury to a priest, smelling wine or things that are not to be
smelled, crookedness, and sexual union with a man are traditionally
said to cause loss of caste." And: "If a man has shed his semen in
non-human females, in a man, in a menstruating woman, in something
other than a vagina, or in water, he should carry out the 'Painful
Heating' vow." Further: "If a twice-born man unites sexually with a
man or a woman in a cart pulled by a cow, or in water, or by day, he
should bathe with his clothes on." The 'Painful Heating' vow is
traditionally said to consist of cow's urine, cow dung, milk,
yogurt, melted butter, water infused with sacrificial grass, and a
fast of one night. Compared to the treatment of female homosexuals,
the treatment of male homosexuals is relatively mild. Note that
there are no threats of 'eternal' damnation, unlike the dogmas of
Judeo-Christian-Islamic scriptures. There is nothing permanent in
the Hindu world. There is always another life, another chance.

An overview of temple imagery, sacred narratives and religious
scriptures does suggest that homosexual activities - in some form -
did exist in ancient India. Though not part of the mainstream, its
existence was acknowledged but not approved. There was some degree
of tolerance when the act expressed itself in heterosexual terms -
when men 'became women' in their desire for other men, as the hijra
legacy suggests. The question that remains now is: how does
attitudes towards homosexuals in ancient India affect modern-day
attitudes? Is our approval or disapproval of same-sex affection and
intercourse dependent on ancient values? And while we ponder over
the questions, we must remind ourselves that the ancient sources
that censure homosexual conduct, also institutionalised the caste
system and approved the subservience of women.